1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to processing of a waste product and/or raw material in order to recover, reuse and/or recycle components of the product and/or material that may have useful economical, environmental, industrial and/or commercial value. More particularly, exemplary embodiments of the present invention generally relate to processes, apparatuses and systems for the processing of asphalt roofing shingles in order to recover, reuse and/or recycle the constituent components comprising the asphalt roofing shingles.
2. Description of Related Art
A great deal of waste products are generated as byproducts from industrialized societies, and substantial effort is used in the removal, disposal, recycling and/or containing of these waste products. Many waste products do not have any useful purpose or function once the useful life of the original product has expired, and these waste products may generally be disposed of and/or contained within ever increasing landfills. Furthermore, recycling processes, while potentially reducing the amount of waste products that are disposed of, may be uneconomical and produce inferior or less useful products from the recycled waste products. In particular, asphalt roofing shingles and other asphalt based roofing materials are removed from building structures, which produces many tons of waste roofing products. These waste roofing products may contain useful components, but prior asphalt roofing shingle recycling has not yielded desirable constituent components of the asphalt roofing shingles or useful products from the components of the asphalt roofing shingles that are able to be reused. Therefore, what is needed is a means for recovering, reusing and/or recycling the components of waste products, such as asphalt roofing shingles, so as to produce useful products from the waste products in an economical and/or environmental fashion.